Haunted House GP

[londoncallingmods]

 The house doesn't exist, that's the first thing anyone who might find themselves inside it would want to know. Now, you might ask how one could find themselves inside something that doesn't exist, but you'd honestly be better off asking yourself how you could leave something that doesn't exist. After all, ideas and concepts can't be burnt or broken, and you can't breakdown a door that's not there- Or was there and then decided to be somewhere else for a while...

 

You wake in a house though, a house that doesn't exist. A house that defies the laws of reality. There are corridors that go on for days, rooms full of nightmares, and millions of doors that lead you anywhere but out. Trapped inside with you are dozens of other people, all searching for an exit, or an explanation.

 

Behind every door you'll find your darkest fears, maybe even memories you've tried to forget, or secrets you never wanted to share... 

 

(OTA! Here is your first of two Halloween gps! This one is, of course, set in the haunted house where your pup can run into anything you can dream up! Deadly traps! Spooky monsters! An existential crises! Top level your pups waking up or running into danger, and then go ahead and tag other players! Since this is all magic-y and spooky don't worry too much about time lines and who bumped into who first. Only rule is that your pup can't escape until November 1st! Have fun! Also, because there are two GPs going up this week, both are open to new top levels for two whole weeks! And, of course, you can keep tagging long after that if you want. :D I'll post reminders daily on slack.)

Comments

[harrowgate]

"It doesn't have to do anything," murmured Felix distractedly. He could hardly hear himself over the sound of the river, but to Logan, the hall was quiet.

Dragging himself up from the wall, Felix struggled to clear his thoughts, push past the shadows clouding his mind with terror. "I don't... I don't recall which way I was going."

[logan_echolls]

"That's alright- We'll just start walking, you can tell me if anything we pass looks, uh, familiar or whatever," Logan suggested, remarkably calm in the face of such strangeness.

Though Logan wasn't the violent wild-card he'd once been. He'd grown and changed so much.

[harrowgate]

Felix might be feeling particularly addled, but he wasn't so far gone that he couldn't tell when he was being humored. He gave Logan a nearly reproachful look, but did not argue. If only the other man knew just what a feat it was to have pre-empted an argument from Felix Harrowgate.

His first steps were slow, but steady enough to keep upright. "You really don't hear the river?" Felix asked breathlessly as they started down the dark hall.

[logan_echolls]

"Like running water? No, sorry," Logan replied, shaking his head a bit. "Now and then I feel like I can hear..."

He cut himself off, wetting his lips as he tried to decide how much to share.

"...I hear a voice. Shouting for me- Or, well, at me, I guess. Though now that you mention it, I did think I could hear the ocean before. I just figured we were near a beach. ...Does that mean something to you? The water, I mean- Is it important?"

[harrowgate]

If he thought he could summon the breath for it, Felix would have laughed at that question. Was it important? How could that question possibly be answered?

"It means something," was the response he finally managed, throat tight and voice tense. "The voice you hear... you know who it is. You know why it's shouting. Don't you?"

[logan_echolls]

Logan was silent for a moment, then sighed, rolling his eyes in an effort to make it look like none of this bothered him.

"Yeah- Yeah, I do."

[harrowgate]

"Something that's followed you. Someone that's haunted you," Felix persisted despite Logan's careless attitude. Logan had made the unconscious mistake of asking about what Felix was experiencing. His questions had earned an answer -- though Felix's answers were not always direct.

[logan_echolls]

"But we're not talking about me, we're talking about you," Logan replied, maybe a bit sharper than he meant it to come out. "I'm not scared of what I can hear, not that scared anyway. ...You're terrified though. I can tell."

[harrowgate]

"Imagine being haunted by something that neither lives nor dies nor cares if you do," Felix replied, sharp himself, and far more self-aware than he had seemed through his fear. He hated that this stranger knew his private terror, and it put him on the defensive, which meant he was poised to strike out -- despite Logan's compassion and help. Maybe even because of it.

[logan_echolls]

Logan was silent for a moment, then wet his lips before speaking.

"Then I'd suggest we get moving," he said finally. "I've made it this far in life, okay? So have you. No reason to think we wont make it to tomorrow, right? So let's get going."

[harrowgate]

Felix was ready to agree, ready to move again, when the lanterns suddenly extinguished, plunging the hall into darkness. A short, choked sound escaped him as, for Felix, the sound of the rushing river surged in his ears, louder than ever before.

An instant later, bright pale green lights exploded in a sickly halo around the both of them. Each was no bigger than the palm of one's hand and shaped rather like a small flower. There were dozens hovering in the air, as bright as Felix's magic could make them, as the wild-eyed wizard himself struggled to breathe through the seizure of terror.

[logan_echolls]

"Oh good, now there's magic," Logan sighed. "Because this totally wasn't weird enough already."

[harrowgate]

The witch-lights glowed brightly, but at least seemed to keep Felix from completely losing his shit. His brow twitched in faint amusement at Logan. "You use what you have at hand, I'll use what I have," he answered. For the first time, Felix almost managed to smile. "If you don't object, I'll be bringing these with us."

[logan_echolls]

Logan eyed the lights, then shrugged. "I'm not about to object to anything that might help," he decided. "Come on, let's get going. Something tells me we don't want to linger here."

[harrowgate]

"Yes," agreed Felix breathlessly, and squared himself to start again. Any direction was better than standing still, where the river could find him. He made a vague come-along gesture and started down the hall, directing the small glowing-green chrysanthemums to float over their heads.

"I see I'm not your first wizard."

[logan_echolls]

"No, you are- Just kind of used to weird stuff these days," Logan admitted, shrugging one shoulder and speaking in that bored California drawl he always defaulted to. "Since I got to London, I've, uh, been working with someone who's kind of a magnet for weird."

[harrowgate]

"Weird for you," Felix noted absently. "Entirely normal for some others. This is a foundational spell." He gave a flick of his fingers toward the witch-lights. "Barely any magic at all. So, Logan, I'm afraid I must enquire what defines weird for you, before continuing further in this conversation."

[logan_echolls]

Logan glanced over, studying the guy and then shrugging as he decided there was no harm in sharing.

"Alien stuff, mostly. Overlapping timelines- Parallel universes. I'd go into detail, but, uh, I don't think it's a story you tell over lunch, you know? The basics are pretty simple though. You're familiar with the idea of parallel universes, right? The idea that every choice you make creates separate time lines or whatever, you know? Well, it's like that, except in my case all those time lines kind of merged. I lived a bunch of different lives, made a bunch of different choices, and now- I kind of remember them all."

[harrowgate]

"My word." Felix wasn't sure what else to say to that, but at least he didn't seem abjectly terrified any more. Instead, he was curious, if a bit unsympathetically clinical.

"How do you remain sane? All of those lives living concurrently in your mind."

[logan_echolls]

"Who says I'm sane?" Logan asked, grinning and then shrugging. Though it was all for show. Posturing to hide the fact that all those lives did war slightly with one another in his head on occasion.

"Besides, it's not like trying to watch two movies at once or anything, it's like watching a bunch of movies back to back, then taking a nap and letting your mind try to sort out which is which. It's not jarring, just... Jumbled or something."

[harrowgate]

"You seem to do a remarkable job of handling it," Felix noted. "I should think it would make me quite mad. All those possible lives behind, and only one ahead. Though if I could have chosen a different past, I might well have done." There was a chance -- a good chance, since he hadn't mentioned it -- that Logan had never seen his photo on the cover of the tabloids and scattered across gossip blogs earlier that year. Perhaps he could talk about past regrets in the more careless, general terms that Logan seemed to prefer.

[logan_echolls]

Logan didn't pay attention to tabloids any more, his own family had spent more than enough time filling those pages, and he only nodded a little in understanding.

"Yeah, I get that," he admitted. "There's a common theme in all my pasts- Things I wish I could have erased."

[harrowgate]

The hall was no longer quite so straight nor quite so featureless as Felix had experienced, as if the maze were adapting to the two of them traveling together. Yet still he could hear the river, ominous, somewhere nearby. "According to the Buddhists, if we were ever to live a life of no regrets, we would pass through this cycle into nirvana," Felix muttered absently. "Yet we are here, and so we must have fucked up."

Logan couldn't know how rare it was for Felix to utter a four-letter curse, pronounced so very clipped and posh and precise. He felt it described the situation most accurately, though.

[logan_echolls]

"You really believe that stuff?" Logan asked, trying a door as they passed it, and scowling when he found it locked. "I don't think there's anything like that, man. I think those are just fairy tales we tell each other- You know, to make death a little less grim and final or whatever."

He looked over at Felix, then gestured around them. "This is just life. Random, fucked up, and inescapable. It's probably not even magic or aliens- We probably got doped by some asshole and are tripping balls in some gross motel room, oblivious to the fact that we're about to have our kidneys stolen."

[harrowgate]

The strained, raspy sound in Felix's throat was actually meant as a laugh, as much as it sounded like sandpaper. "I sincerely hope that your explanation is the correct one. It is vastly preferable to the idea of being trapped in a maze of magic from which there is no escape. I would be elated to wake up missing a kidney."